U.T. Dallas Chess Team Ties For First Place
In Pan-American Intercollegiate Tournament

PROVIDENCE, Rhode Island (Dec. 29, 2001) - For the second year in a row,
The University of Texas at Dallas tied for first place Saturday in
the Pan American Intercollegiate Team Chess Championship, the top
college chess tournament held in the Western Hemisphere.

The University of Maryland, Baltimore County, shared top honors in
the prestigious four-day tournament, which was held at the Providence
Marriott Hotel.

The UTD and UMBC “A” Teams each amassed 5 1/2 match points during
the tournament. UTD won five of its six matches and tied in games, 2-2,
in its head-to-head match with UMBC.

Tied for third place with four match points were Stanford University,
the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Harvard University and the
UTD and UMBC “B” Teams. A team from the University of Chicago
finished next with 3 1/2 points.

In all, 27 teams participated in the 47th Pan Am Tournament, which began
in 1946 as a biannual tournament and became an annual event in 1965.

“I am very proud of both of our teams,” said Dr. Alexey Root,
associate director of UTD’s Chess Program. “They represented the
university extremely well. To have one team tie for first and the other
tie for third is rather remarkable considering the high quality of the
competition.”

In recent years, UTD and UMBC have developed an intense chess rivalry
and have emerged as unquestionably the two best college chess teams in
the United States. The two tied at last year’s Pan Am Tournament in
Milwaukee, and last spring UTD barely edged UMBC in the “Final Four of
Chess” competition in Dallas.

In Providence, UMBC actually outscored UTD in game points, 18 1/2 to
18, but under U.S. Chess Federation rules, the two universities are
considered co-champions. Last year in Milwaukee, the situation was
reversed, with UTD winning the so-called “tie-breaker” on game
points, 19 1/2 to 16.

Six weeks ago, UTD became the first university ever to hold an
international chess tournament sanctioned by the world governing body of
chess, FIDE (Federation Internationale des Echecs). UTD was able
to do so because it had the top-ranked collegiate chess team in the
United States (a team with two grandmasters and one international
master) and had players from more than the four countries FIDE required
to sanction an international tournament. In fact, players from seven
countries participated in the UTD Chess Championship.

Earlier in the year, UTD was named “Chess College of the Year” by
the U.S. Chess Federation.

The University of Texas at Dallas, located at the
convergence of Richardson, Plano and Dallas in the heart of the complex
of major multinational technology corporations known as the Telecom
Corridor, enrolls more than 7,000 undergraduate and 5,000 graduate
students. The school’s freshman class traditionally stands at the
forefront of Texas state universities in terms of average SAT scores.
The university offers a broad assortment of bachelor’s, master’s and
doctoral degree programs. For additional information about UTD, please
visit the university’s web site at www.utdallas.edu.